


New Year's Eve

by foryouandbits



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Friendship, Multi, New Year's Eve, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 14:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9127150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foryouandbits/pseuds/foryouandbits
Summary: Jack invites Lardo and Shitty over to celebrate New Year's with him and Bitty.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_one_that_fell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_one_that_fell/gifts).



> This was a prompt from [the_one_that_fell](http://archiveofourown.org/users/the_one_that_fell/pseuds/the_one_that_fell) for 'Swawesome Santa 2016, asking for more of Jack and Lardo's friendship. I hope this is what you wanted!

"Thanks for having us over, Jack."

Lardo entered the apartment first, followed closely behind by Shitty. Jack held out a fist, which she gladly bumped before stepping further inside and looking around. Unlike Shitty, she'd never gotten the privilege of seeing Jack's new digs, and holy hell were they nice. Providence wasn't the most exciting of towns, but Jack had scored waterfront property on the Seekonk River and lived high enough up for sight to the other side. Shitty said the balcony was a great place to smoke up and think about the intricacies of life, but Lardo had seen Shitty do that in the backyard of the Haus – like, pre-Bitty backyard of the Haus when nobody mowed the lawn or picked up empty beer cans and discarded panties after Kegsters.

Bitty had gone to town with the Christmas decorations, but underneath the tinsel and lights and garland (Christ, the garland – it was everywhere), Lardo could see the paintings she gifted Jack for his housewarming. He'd given them a home both in the living room and above the outcrop leading to the kitchen. They added a good touch of color, because Jack kept the palate of the entire apartment very neutral. That had not surprised Lardo in the slightest. Even without the obscene Christmas decorations ( _How_ did Bitty manage to get that big of a tree to fit in that tiny corner?), it was clear why she'd never been invited over before. Bitty's presence jumped out at Lardo from every corner of the apartment. There was a bunny next to the fruit bowl, for crying out loud.

Shitty put a case of beer in the fridge; Lardo entered the kitchen from the opposite side. Shitty closed the door and Lardo's eyes landed on no less than fifteen post it notes, all adorned with small hearts and signed "B."

"How many times did you say you've been here, Shits?" she asked, her voice low. It was probably unnecessary; Bitty had music playing through the sound system that lined the corners of every room Lardo had seen so far.

"Handful. Four or five."

"And it took you this long?"

Shitty followed her gaze to the fridge and grinned sheepishly. "In my defense, there were fewer of them before."

"Yeah, sure," said Lardo with an eye roll. She exited the kitchen; Jack was walking down the hallway with Bitty behind him.

"Sorry, y'all!" Bitty called. "I was making the bed and didn't hear you come in!"

"Yeah, cause of the surround sound Christmas Nostalgia," Lardo said, gesturing a thumb toward the sound bar on the entertainment center where Bitty's phone was hooked up. "What's with the music, Bits? Christmas was a week ago."

"It's still Christmas! Everyone knows the Christmas season lasts until the three wise men show up at the Epiphany, and that's not until January sixth." Shitty immediately opened his mouth and Lardo could recognize the start of a religious rant from a mile away. She elbowed Shitty in the stomach; he lowered his Pointed Finger of Truth and closed his mouth. Bitty headed toward the sound bar. "I can change it to something else if you want –"

"No, Bits, Christmas music is fine," said Lardo. "Just no Alvin and the Chipmunks, k?" Bitty nodded but still picked up his phone and began deleting songs from his playlist. "Jack. Tour me?"

"Yep. Come here, we'll start this way. I'll leave the kitchen for Bittle to explain." Shitty plopped onto the couch with beer number one while Lardo followed Jack toward the hallway. Jack stopped and pointed at the paintings. "I put them up right, right?"

"Yeah, Jack, they work great in here."

"I really like them."

If Ransom or Holster had said it, Lardo would have considered it a compliment purely out of obligation, but Jack wasn't the kind of person to point out a gift purely for the sake of stating he still had it. From the light in his blue eyes and the half-grin on his lips, Lardo could see he meant what he said – but that was Jack Zimmermann through and through. He never said or did anything less than one hundred percent.

"Thanks, Jack," Lardo said. Jack pulled her forward by the shoulders and began pointing out doors along the narrow hallway.

"You and Shits are in here," he said, gesturing to a guest bedroom behind the door furthest from the end of the hallway. The furniture looked new, at least newer than what was in the living room; the queen-sized bed still had that stockroom smell and the crimson duvet and matching striped pillows were pristine, like they'd never been slept on. From what he'd told Lardo, Shitty had only slept over the once, and he "spooned Jack like a baby" the entire night. Lardo dumped her bag onto the armchair in the corner before she followed Jack out of the room. He pointed out the rest of the doors ("Linen closet. Towels are in there if you want to take a shower in the morning. Office and also kind of a workout room, but I mostly run on the Riverwalk or work out at the stadium. Half those DVDs belong to Bittle. Bathroom. It's – it's a bathroom. I don't know. Why did you ask me to do this and not Bits?") before he opened the door at the very end of the hallway to the master suite.

Lardo stopped in the doorway. The apartment was pretty big for an apartment, but the master bedroom seemed to be larger than anyone needed. It made sense, though, with the size of the bed, but Jack had always been a very no-nonsense person, and even with Bitty's attempts to decorate, the room still looked too large.

"Wow," said Lardo.

"Yeah," said Jack, and he waited by her side as she looked her fill. There was a large framed print above the bed, a generic forest landscape that disappointed Lardo, but she swallowed her comment and started already thinking of ideas for a project to replace it. Something with yellow or orange in it, probably, to complement all the blue in the room.

"You should put a closet over there to take up some of the room."

"Closet's this way," said Jack, and he nodded to a door on the west end of the room. Lardo set her jaw to keep it from falling open; the closet was the size of her room at the Haus. There was even a speaker in here too, and when she walked inside she could hear Bitty skip over Alvin and Chipmunks. Jack flipped a switch and track lighting illuminated the different alcoves containing Jack's ridiculous wardrobe. Lardo knew, on a surface level, that Jack had more clothes than just the Samwell and Falconers swag she always saw him in (he was wearing a Falconers half-zip at the moment), and had seen him once or twice in a suit, but the selection of dress shirts, jackets, and pants seemed to go on forever, taking up three full rails positioned above several closed drawers. Two of the lights focused specifically on the full length mirror near the back of the room, which reflected floor-to-ceiling shelves of shoes. Jack's two pairs of hideous yellow running shoes sat proudly in the middle, the centerpiece of a fashion travesty.

In addition to the unnecessary amount of drawers in the closet, there was a stand-alone dresser on the opposite side which had a framed photo of Bitty on top of it. Lardo's heart melted, just a smidge, when she realized it was just for Bitty.

"Bro," said Lardo, when she finally looked back at Jack. Jack had been standing just next to the door, waiting sheepishly for her approval. "This closet it mad 'swawesome. The whole apartment is mad 'swawesome."

"Thanks, Lardo."

She gestured toward Bitty's dresser. "How's that working out? Is it just full of shorts and sweaters?"

"Ha, mostly," said Jack with a dopey smile, the same kind of smile he wore a lot over the past few weeks since the epic coming-out brunch at Jerry's. It suited him. "I think there's enough at this point, though, that he doesn't need to bring a bag when he stays over." Lardo couldn't help it; she ended up smiling too and held out a fist for him to bump, which he did. "It's nice. You should consider it for when you go up to Cambridge –"

"Bro."

"Lards. Come on. I told you about me and Bittle."

"It's not that," said Lardo uncomfortably. She walked over to the line of suit jackets, sorted by color, and began to run her fingers over them (fuck, the black ones are _expensive_ ). "We're just not putting a label on it, you know? I still don't know what I'm doing after graduation, if I'm going up by him or not, and you know him. He doesn't want to make me feel like I'm obligated to stay in town if I don't want to."

"Do you want to?"

Lardo dropped a khaki pant leg and looked back at Jack.

"Yes." She looked back to Jack's suits. "No. I don't know. I applied to grad schools in the area but I haven't heard back yet. It's just an iffy time right now. Can we just let it be what it is?"

"Yeah," said Jack. "Sorry."

"No, it's fine. We're fine. You still owe me deets, though. School's been out for over two weeks, bro, and I know Bits never went home. How's domestic life been?" Jack's smile returned and Lardo finally left the closet.

"I've had a couple of roadies since he's been here but mostly good. I've missed waking up to his cooking – well, I guess more accurately waking up, going on a run, and coming back to the smell of his cooking. I got him to run one time with me but you know Bittle and the cold."

"Chyeah," said Lardo. They walked through the bedroom and back toward the living room. "Dex says we need new windows and ever since he said it, Bits has been complaining about drafts –"

"Y'all talking 'bout me?" Bitty asked when Lardo and Jack entered the living room. "My ears are burning."

"No, never," said Jack, and pulled Bitty up against him. Lardo immediately looked for the sin bin only to realize it wasn't there; they were at Jack's house and she was a guest, so she probably shouldn't attempt to fine Jack and Bitty in their own home. Instead she sat next to Shitty on the couch; he handed her his second beer, which he had just opened, and then headed off to the kitchen to replace his own. When he returned, he draped a comforting arm around her shoulders. She rested her head against it and sighed; Shitty's parents knew about their relationship (or whatever it was), and were formal and polite, but there had always been an underlying uneasiness when she was with them, and she'd been with them for nearly two weeks now.

"Do you want to go outside before it gets too cold?" Shitty asked, his voice low, as if only for her. Jack and Bitty still heard, though. "Lemme tell you, Lards, the river seems endless when you're high above it."

"Nah," said Lardo, and she took a sip of her beer. "I think I'm good without the endless rivers tonight."

"Cool."

"I'll come out with you, Shitty," said Bitty, and everyone looked at him. He turned a horrible shade of pink. "For company! God, y'all, if there was a day when I actually did decide to partake it'd be like the world was over."

Jack kissed his neck before he let Bitty go, and Bitty and Shitty headed out to the balcony, Bitty stopping only to grab the thick blanket from the basket under the end table. When the door closed behind them, Jack looked fit to burst.

"Okay, I know you said no presents," he said, the grin on his face like that of a small child having just awoken his parents at four o'clock in the morning, "but I got you something."

"Jack! I didn't bring you anything! Way to make me feel like a shitbird."

"It's small, I promise. I just saw it when I was shopping for Bits and it made me think of you. You gave me all these paintings and you wouldn't even let me pay you – I had to do something."

"What does small mean? Your version of small is, like, a two thousand dollar oven."

"No, it's actually small." Jack picked up a brightly wrapped box the size of a football from underneath the Christmas tree. There were still a few gifts there, but Lardo wouldn't put it past Bitty to wrap empty boxes just for decoration. Lardo quickly tore open the paper and the box to reveal a plush stuffed baby giraffe, complete with stubby legs, droopy ears, and tiny brown nubs for horns. The high pitched squeal from deep inside her throat had nowhere else to go but out of her mouth, and Jack's face immediately lit up at the sound of it.

"Jack!"

"You like it?"

"Oh my God it's so cute!" She tore her eyes away from the soft baby giraffe to stare daggers at Jack. "No one can know." Jack laughed.

"Okay, okay. My lips are sealed."

"Come here, bro." Jack sat next to her on the couch and she gave him a tight hug. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now you have to name it."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"I don't know. Maurice."

"Maurice?" Lardo asked.

Jack shrugged. "Or something less French, I guess."

"Nah, Maurice is good."

"You think Shits is going to be pissed I didn't get him anything?"

"Yes."

"Damn."

***

Bitty and Shitty stayed on the balcony until nearly midnight, Bitty wrapped tightly in his blanket but coming inside frequently for more beer. As Shitty grew more and more stoned, he wore less and less clothing, until the point where Lardo pulled them both inside before frostbite settled in.

"It's five 'til," said Lardo. "Come on in and get some champagne."

Bitty hopped out of his chair and entered the apartment with a "Ho Lord, it's warm in here!" Shitty placed his cold hands on either side of Lardo's waist as he followed her back inside and to the kitchen where Jack was pouring champagne.

"Honey, are you gonna kiss me at midnight?" Bitty asked. He'd discarded his blanket back in the basket and replaced it with Jack's torso.

"Nope."

"What!"

"I promised Lardo my midnight kiss already. You looked set to spend the night on the balcony with Shitty, so I had to make a back-up plan." Bitty pouted indignantly and Jack smiled at him. "I guess I can stick with Plan A. If you're nice to me."

"Honey, I'm always nice to you."

Lardo had turned on the television and Shitty was already fighting her on which New Year's TV special to watch. "Turn on Pit Bull," said Shitty.

"We are not watching Pit Bull. New Year's Rockin' Eve is the shit and has been on for, like, all time."

"But then we have to look at Jenny McCarthy and her anti-vaccination bullshit."

"She's not going to be talking about that at midnight. She's going to be looking for a guy to kiss. We're watching Ryan Seacrest."

"Pit Bull has Queen Latifah and Snoop Dogg."

"We are not –"

"Y'all, we have two more minutes until midnight. Put something on so we can count down obnoxiously loud with the TV and then watch fireworks."

Lardo won simply because she had the remote in her hand, and the countdown in the corner read "2:04." Jack and Bitty accompanied them on the couch, Bitty on Jack's lap. Bitty handed both Lardo and Shitty a glass of champagne before taking his from Jack, and then the four of them looked at the television as Ryan Seacrest and Jenny McCarthy yelled into their microphones over the noise of the thousands of people in Times Square, all with their necks craned to look at the ball when it began to drop.

"Sixty!" shouted Shitty.

"Holy shit, Shitty, are we going to count down the entire minute?" Lardo asked, but Bitty had already joined in at fifty-eight. Lardo looked at Jack, who smiled at her before he joined in, yelling "Fifty-six!"

"Fifty-five!" said Lardo, and she looked at the screen. They were not at all in sync with the countdown there. "Crap. Fifty-three, no fifty-two!"

It got very tedious in the thirties, but Bitty and Shitty were growing more and more excited with each passing second, until finally:

"Five!" shouted Bitty.

"Four!" shouted Shitty.

"Three," said Jack.

"Two," said Lardo. "One! Happy New –"

Lardo was cut off by a mouthful of Shitty's mustache. Despite the uncomfortable bristles against her lips, she chuckled and realigned them before carefully kissing him again. He was gentle with her, like he always was, and when he let go she looked into his green eyes and couldn't control the blush he caused on her skin. He pressed his forehead against hers.

"Happy New Year, Lardo."

"Happy New Year, Shitty."

They turned to Jack and Bitty, to say the same to them, but they were deeply engrossed in each other: Bitty straddled Jack's lap, his arms wrapped around Jack's neck, one of Jack's arms around Bitty's waist, one holding a handful of Bitty's booty. Shitty and Lardo waited for what seemed like an acceptable amount of time, but neither appeared to be coming up for air anytime soon.

"Bro," said Shitty. " _Breathe_."

Bitty pulled away, embarrassed, but Jack was looking at him with hearts in his eyes, nothing but happiness on his face.

The first pop of the fireworks outside drew their attention, and they all looked to the sliding glass doors. "You want to go outside and watch, Bits?" Jack asked.

"I just got warm," said Bitty into Jack's neck. "Let's stay in."

They did, the four friends standing side by side along the glass doors, holding onto each other and watching the fireworks bring in another new year.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [This is what Maurice looks like](http://nord.imgix.net/Zoom/16/_11992016.jpg?fit=fill&bg=FFF&fm=jpg&q=60&w=860&h=1318).


End file.
